The world urgently needs new sustainable sources of protein. A growing population, scarce water and land resources as well as declining natural fish stocks, make this more critical than ever.

Industrial farming of chickens, pigs and fish relies on protein from two sources, land-based soya plantations and marine fishmeal. Agricultural protein requires vast amounts of land and water, while the sea caught alternative has material consequences for marine life. Increases in global food demand, and environmental issues have caused prices of both protein sources to soar in recent years.

AgriProtein is leading a new industry called nutrient recycling. Using fly larvae fed on abundant waste nutrient sources, AgriProtein has developed and tested a new large scale and sustainable source of natural protein. The nutrient recycling bioconversion process utilizes waste food as raw materials and generates valuable feed components: an insect based protein meal - MagMeal™, an extracted fat - MagOil™ and a nutrient rich soil conditioner - MagSoil™.

Insect larvae are the natural food of chickens in the wild and fish in streams. Their nutritional composition is as good as that of fishmeal and better than soya. As a natural food it has excellent take on and digestibility properties.

AgriProtein has been developing its insect based protein feed, extruded oil, and fertilisers since 2009. Following five years of parallel academic and manufacturing research, AgriProtein has raised $11 million from strategic partners to commercialise and globalise its IP. The company broke ground on its first industrial scale factory ’F1’ in May 2014. The plant will come on line in 2015 and produce 7 tonnes of MagMeal™, 3 tonnes of MagOil™ and 20 tonnes of MagSoil™ per day. Locations for the second factory are currently under evaluation.